Under his voice and his flaming eyes the hall sprang into life, while the men carried out the blind harper and one of their own number who had been stricken with madness at what he had seen. Then the hall blazed up with cressets, logs were flung on the fire, and parties of men set out to build beacons and guard the bay as the Dark Master had given command. And when word was spread abroad among the others of what had chanced in the hall that morning, Red Murrough, the Dark Master's lieutenant, swore a great oath.
"If that Cuculain of whom the seanachie spoke be not the man Brian Buidh, then may I go down to hell alive!"
And the men, who feared Red Murrough's heavy hand and hated him, muttered that he would be like to travel that same road whether living or dead, in which there was some truth.
While these things took place in the hall at Bertragh—and they were told later to Brian by many who had seen them and heard them, all telling the same tale—Brian and his sailing galley was making hard weather of it. Six of the O'Malleys had been sent with him to manage the galley, for he was no seaman and had placed himself in their hands; and after rounding into Kilkieran Bay from the castle harbor and reaching out across the mouth of the bay toward Carna, intending to reach Cathbarr's tower direct, the blast came down on them, and even the O'Malleys looked stern.
Sterner yet they looked when Brian cried that Golam Head was veiling in fog behind them, and with that the wind swerved almost in a moment and swept down out of the east, bearing fog and snow with it. Nor was this all, for the shift of wind bore against the seas and swept down currents and whirlpools out of the bay, and after the snow and black fog shrieked down upon them, the seamen straightway fell to praying.
"Get up and bail!" shouted Brian, kicking them to their feet, for the seas were sweeping over the counter. The helmsman groaned and bade him desist, and almost at the same instant their mast crashed over the bow, breaking the back of one seaman, and the galley broached to.
With that the O'Malleys ceased praying and fell to work with a will, getting out the sweeps and bailing. The mingling of snow, shrieking wind, and black fog had been too much for their superstitious natures, but made no impression on Brian, for the simple reason that he did not see why fog and wind should not come together. After he understood their fears better he shamed them into savage energy by his laughter, and since the broken-backed man had gone overboard, took his sweep and set his muscles to work.
They made shift to keep the craft before the wind, but presently Brian found that half the men's fear sprang from the fact that the fog and snow blinded them, shutting out the land, and that the shifting wind had completely bewildered them. When he asked for their compass, their leader grunted:
"No need have we for a compass on this boat, Brian Buidh, save when warlocks turn the fog and wind upon us. I warrant that were it not for the fog, we would be safe in port ere now. As it is, the Virgin alone knows where we are or whither going."
"This is some of the Dark Master's wizardry," growled out another. "Before we hung those men of his last night, they said that the winds would bear word of it to the dark one, cead mile mollaght on him!"